


Be Mine (and I'll try to Make it Worth your While)

by persnickett



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Getting Together, M/M, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 09:34:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17958002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: “The fuck is this?”Gally spotted the new addition not three seconds after Minho heard him come in the door. Dude was seriously a bit weird about the kitchen, Minho had always said it.“Sounds like about ten cents to me.”





	Be Mine (and I'll try to Make it Worth your While)

**Author's Note:**

> So. AU. Minally. Because I apparently still have this fandom to blame (and thank) for the fact that I apparently just don't know who I am anymore. <3  
> And because this week is apparently Valentine's week for the TMR discord, so I thought I'd squeeze in another little valentine for ya'll.  
> And because the wifey and I were word warring for February and she was kicking my ass! (this was posted with two minutes to spare in my timezone - TWO. But technically it was still February so ... happy belated <3)
> 
> I'm as new to these guys as they are to each other, so I hope it's enjoyable for everyone concerned. :D  
> <3 S.

 

 

“The fuck is this?”

 

Gally spotted the new addition not three seconds after Minho heard him come in the door. Dude was seriously a bit weird about the kitchen, Minho had always said it. 

 

“Sounds like about ten cents to me.” Minho dusted the crumbs from his hands, having completed construction on the perfect sandwich, and hopped up on the counter next to his plate to tuck in while he watched the proceedings.

 

This promised to be at least marginally entertaining.

 

Gally cast him a wary side-glance on his way past, pulling the strap of his laptop bag off over his head as he went.

 

“Swear Jar,” he said, when he had crossed to the counter and had the freshly-scrubbed and newly slot-lidded former Skippy receptacle in hand. Reading the hastily-scrawled Sharpie-and-Post-It label out loud as if the two of them weren’t the only ones with access to the apartment and Minho needed this information like there was anybody else who could have written it. “…You’re shitting me.”

 

Minho shrugged. “Make it twenty, I guess.”

 

The jar came back down on the counter with a less-than-gentle _clunk_.

 

“Minho.” Gally did that thing he did sometimes before he said his name, where he squinched his eyes shut all tight, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Seriously – “

 

“Hey, all I know is Thomas says he tried it with Newt and it totally worked for them.”

 

Minho picked up his sandwich to take his first bite. _Perfect_. The ratio of lettuce to roast beef was totally optimal. Just enough crunch.

 

“Then Thomas needs his ears checked,” Gally grumbled, turning away across the narrow aisle of the tiny apartment kitchen to the opposite counter, to put his keys neatly away in the bowl nobody ever put keys in but him. See? Totally weird about the kitchen. “Newt still swears like a pirate.”

 

Minho didn’t respond, taking his second bite and watching Gally lean into the counter across from him instead – hands braced against the edges and head hanging. He rolled his broad shoulders wearily, making the muscles in his back shift and beckon.

 

 _Trapezius,_ and _Latissimus dorsi_ , Minho mentally enumerated while he chewed, then swallowed carefully.

 

He didn’t say Newt doesn’t swear. He said it _worked_.

 

The brunt of their ‘adulting’ had fallen harder on Gally, Minho supposed, watching him tilt his head to one side like he sometimes did, stretching out the long, corded tendon in his neck. ( _Splendius capitus._ )

 

They managed to keep themselves in rent and protein shakes easily enough, of course. Minho’s number of clients had managed to stay pretty steady the past year or so, doing the whole Personal Trainer thing, and he still took the odd shift at the coffee shop with Thomas – who had a smile that got them some pretty fat tips – and no matter what he told Newt, he knew it.

 

Whereas while Gally’s desk job – or his ‘open-concept-workspace-job’, to be precise about it – at the architecture firm downtown covered his half with considerably more to spare than Minho managed to bring in, there were definitely days when it looked – and sounded – like it took its toll.

 

So. Swear Jar.

 

”Probably hard to hear anything with Newt’s tongue basically in there all the shuck time,” Minho said, into his next bite. There was also the possibility that Thomas had no idea what Newt was saying half of the time anyway. Minho wouldn’t blame him. There really ought to be some kind of law about how many Briticisms a right jolly old bloke was allowed to use in a single sentence.

 

Gally made a tired sound somewhere low in his throat before he turned around. Minho watched him settle both hips against the counter and fold his arms across his chest. He didn’t even hold back the grin when Gally cocked one of those dramatic eyebrows at him. Those things were so extra, it just never got old.

 

“Fine.”

 

It barely took a whole stride of that tall motherfucker’s lanky leg to cross back over to the counter on Minho’s side.

 

“But y’know what?” A big finger jabbed into the air a few inches in front of Minho’s nose. “If we’re doing this, then stupid Glader slang counts. You’re going down. Only shanks still use made up languages from grade school.”

 

“Do you even hear yourself, man?” Minho pointed out. “You _just said_ shank.”

 

Gally looked at him, gave him that crooked smile and another flash of that even crooked-er brow. “So did you.”

 

Minho didn’t always notice, but this close up, his eyes were a flawless shade of sea-glass. So it wasn’t his fault it tripped him up into falling for that bush league play.

 

“…Shuck.”

 

Gally, on occasion, did have a point. It would be coming up on fifteen years now – fifteen, holy _klunk_ – since their lovable ragtag band of misfits had graduated from their dear old Alma Mater of Glade P.S.

 

Of course in Minho’s defense, when you lived in a town the size they did, and you came all the way up through middle and high school with the same, unchanging group of idiots, old habits tended to die pretty hard. Only the girls didn’t use their old childhood secret-language, which had been mostly just for getting away with swearing in front of the teachers, anymore. But then again, Brenda hadn’t joined their group until a little later, and Teresa had always just straight up refused to use it anyway.

 

Then there was Thomas, who, language barriers with his English-speaking boyfriend aside, had never really gotten Glade slang quite right either, when Minho came to think of it.

 

“That’s twenty,” Gally said, fishing in his pocket for a fistful of change. “But I’ll cover you, just this once.” Minho watched him sort through the coins in his palm with a blunt fingertip, picking fifty cents out. And then another dime for the hell of it. “… _Shank_.”

 

The coins rattled avidly in the jar, and then Gally’s hand was making some sudden and unwanted advances toward the second half of Minho’s sandwich.

 

Nice try, big boy. Minho caught his wrist with a speed he tended to reserve for only the highest priority items like beer, foodstuffs, or the remote.

 

“ _Mine_.”

 

The sea-gray of those eyes went abruptly kind of stormy. Minho couldn’t deny it was A Look. Not one he wasn’t treated to, like, pretty much on the day-to-day, but still.

 

He could feel his own smirk go accordingly challenging in response. His grip got a little firmer too.

 

“Well that shirt you’re wearing is mine,” Gally growled, moving a little closer, in between where Minho’s knees jutted off the end of the countertop. Setting his stance staunch and flat-footed in front of him, and giving a half-hearted tug for his freedom. “Don’t be so possessive.”

 

“Maybe I should take it off?” Minho suggested, and Gally’s skeptical scowl said quite clearly they both knew that wasn’t about to happen. “Or maybe…” Minho slung a friendly arm around Gally’s neck, that had more than a little hint of pull behind it. “You should make me.”

 

“Heh.” That crooked smirk again, but this time with that competitive glint of fire that always lit his expression when they wrestled. And Gally gave in to the pull around his neck at a slow, controlled pace – a reminder Minho didn’t need that he wouldn’t be moving him anywhere if Gally didn’t want to go – and their foreheads were pressing roughly together. “You’re on.”

 

And they were off. Minho was starting at a double disadvantage, being that his feet were already off the floor and Gally was the literal champion of their high school wrestling career. He had an arm around his neck already though, so he decided to go with that, sliding off the counter and letting his full weight bring Gally down into a half crouch – his right arm angling in tighter to come around his throat while the left one hooked in under Gally’s elbow, aiming to twist it up into a hold behind his back.

 

Gally surprised him by ducking down and bringing his head out from under, though. Defence wasn’t usually his style, he tended to lean in and use his strength to find a weakness, break the hold. 

 

Minho was surprised enough that Gally had time to whirl around, staying low and getting an arm under his thigh, bringing him off balance and down to the floor in what might have been record time for them.  

 

“ _Stop wearing my stuff to the gym_ ,” Gally grated, hand pinning him in the centre of his chest, the other actually reaching for the hem of the embattled t-shirt as if he fully intended to strip it right off his body this exact minute. Minho butted a knee under his thigh to bring his hip down to the floor beside him. “Uhff,” he grunted. “It comes back smelling like a wet dog made out with a Filet o’ Fish sandwich…”

 

“You’re sniffing my laundry now?” Minho contended, his voice already a little breathless, as Gally’s left forearm snaked under his shoulder, rolling him onto his side and actually going for the edge of the shirt again. Gally was always the larger and stronger of them, but Minho was fast. A wrist block, and then another, stopped him from catching hold with ease. “Creepy.”

 

But it also meant he was too busy blocking to go for a hold of his own, and the arm under his shoulder was rolling him over, onto his belly now.

 

“But kinda hot,” Minho rasped, tossing the words backward over his shoulder. “Who’s the possessive, territorial one now?”

 

“Oh my God,” Gally gritted in his ear from behind him. Taking their banter sexual always shut him down. The big burly lug was such a delicate prude it was fucking failproof. Not to mention hilarious. “…Your mouth.” Sure enough, the distraction made the forearm across his shoulder blades let up, just slightly.

 

It was enough. Minho dipped one shoulder down out of the hold so he was free now to roll.

 

He found himself directly under Gally when he was able to get face up again. It wasn’t the best position unless he could get a hold somewhere, too easy to end up pinned.

 

“What about my mouth?”

 

Minho went for the arm around his neck but Gally went uncharacteristically defensive again, planting his hands wide on either side of Minho’s shoulders instead of going for the pin, and ducking his head out from under the hold.

 

A second try only ended the same way, so Minho arched up with a hip, moving to wrap his leg around Gally’s back. It was risky, because Gally could use the leverage to roll him again and basically just sit on him until he cried Uncle. Which… had happened more than once. Per year. Of pretty much every year they had been friends.

 

And that had been a lot of years.

 

But Gally only picked up a hand to shove his hip down, like he was suddenly only interested now in getting away from him. He was too slow though, and Minho had a leg in between his knees, so he nudged one to the side and out from under him while dragging his hips down with the leg still wrapped around his back.

 

Gally came down flat on top of him. Minho should have been making to try and flip him over for the upper hand at this point, but several things happened at once.

 

First, all the air was crushed out of his lungs and Minho couldn’t focus on anything except the little black spots suddenly percolating their way all throughout his vision. Second, the air came out of Gally too, hot and harsh against the close-cropped hair at the back of Minho’s neck and right down the collar of the contentious t-shirt, and then Minho couldn’t even have breathed steadily if his lungs had been working. Thirdly, Gally was making a short, defeated sort of sound into the curve of his shoulder and something somewhat unexpected but definitely hard was poking into him where his thigh was still between Gally’s legs.

 

Oh. That explained the whole hell-bent-on-escape act. Even now he was still trying it, pulling his hips away up and off of Minho with another defeated-sounding huff of air against his neck that did nothing to convince him that letting Gally go right now was something Minho should want to do.

 

His leg was still hooked over him anyway – his arm thrown across the back of his shoulders now too – so Gally didn’t get very far. He could still press up off of his chest and glower irritably down at him though, which he did quite effectively, despite the hard, overbright look in his eyes and the flushed spots on his cheeks.

 

He was still so close Minho could count his freckles.

 

“Just take the shirt off.” Gally ordered, the waver in his voice just barely detectable under the usual hostile bluster.

 

The thing was. This would be shocking, or at the very least a surprise or something, except for how it just… wasn’t. This was a dance the two of them had somehow be been tangoing around each other for months now.  

 

“You first,” Minho gritted back, making a fist in the back of Gally’s shirt tightly enough it pulled both the once-crisp work button-down, as well as his undershirt, out of the waistband of his pants, exposing the skin at the small of his back.

 

And since that didn’t seem to get his point across, Minho dropped the grappling leg around Gally’s hips so he could lie flat under him, slotting their hips properly together and grinding upward just far enough. Just enough to let Gally feel him. To get the message across that the feeling was definitely mutual.  

 

The stormy look blinked itself right out of those intense eyes, leaving nothing but calm seas.

 

“I’m just gonna—” Gally warned, before leaning forward and down.

 

Minho canted helpfully upward. “Better late than never,” he replied, just before they collided.

 

It was soft, and it was hard and insistent. It was filthy words and rough hands being gently feather-light teasing. It was stupid banter and the hottest, stickiest gayest wrestling match Minho had ever had the pleasure of imagining. It was Gally’s fingers tangling in between his own against the linoleum. Hot, plush lips pressed into his neck, brushing the shell of his ear, and spilling confessions into the crown of his hair. It was crazy and reeling and deliberate and slow and sweeter than expected. It was perfect. It was _theirs_.

 

The kitchen was a mess. The number of things they had managed to knock off the counters each time they rolled too fast into the cupboard doors or one of them tossed a piece of clothing a little too exuberantly across the room was frankly impressive in its thoroughness.

  
The Swear Jar had toppled and rolled up against the fridge, Gally’s key bowl was in several pieces, and if Minho’s sandwich hadn’t already been toast, it would be now. They were probably also going to need a whole new coffee maker.

 

They were a mess too. But Gally was seeing to the sticky situation on his chest and his stomach, handing off the t-shirt he had chosen for the job so that Minho could deal with the similar state of affairs on his hand and legs.

 

“Man,” he complained, when Gally handed it over. “Why you gotta use mine?”

 

“It’s _mine_ ,” Gally retorted, before letting his head fall exhaustedly back against the linoleum tile with a tired sigh. “…Fuck.”

 

“That reminds me,” Minho arched his back, reaching up over his head to snag his sweats from where they were hanging from the counter’s edge. He fumbled in the pocket for his wallet, and took out everything that was inside, tossing it in the general direction of the runaway Swear Jar. “I estimate we owe about a combined $37.50”

 

Gally lifted his head up enough off the floor to shoot him an incredulous stare. “You _counted_??”

 

“Asian,” Minho declared, pointing a finger into his own face. “Innately gifted in Math.”

 

Gally snorted and dropped his head back down to the floor. A little more gently this time, so he could shake it back and forth. “The things that come out of your fucking mouth.”

 

“We’ve been over this,” he asserted, settling down so his head could tip down to rest against a certain warm, brawny shoulder. “You love my mouth.”

 

Gally’s answering hum didn’t sound at all like disagreement.

 

“Besides,” Minho went on. “That’s $37.60. If we go a second round I might actually have enough to take you out to dinner.”

 

Those eyebrows. Seriously. Minho could actually feel where the one that was currently tucked down against the top of his hair quirked upward.

 

“If you wanted to take me out you could have just asked.”

 

Minho heaved a slightly smug, very contented sigh. Where was the fun in that? “…Happy Valentine’s Day?“

 

He could feel Gally pull back far enough that Minho turned his head so he could look him in the face, just to see what would be going on there.

  
It was something (kind of adorably) like confusion. “So wait a minute. When you said the Jar worked for Newt and Thomas…”

 

The sigh that escaped Minho this time was much more smug, but still admittedly a little contented.

 

“Your boyfriend’s two best friends in the world and you don’t even know how they got together.” Minho shook his head sadly.

 

“Boyfriend?” That managed to get both eyebrows up, this time. “Not wastin’ any time are ya?”

 

“We’ve wasted enough,” Minho answered seriously, propping himself up on an elbow to face him.

 

Gally looked at him a minute. “Good that,” he replied, reaching a warm hand out for his shoulder to pull him down into a kiss.

 

It was nice. Very nice. And his skin was smooth and creamy under the freckles, and it smelled like home.

 

“If you’re already gearing up for round two,” Minho said, only slightly breathlessly, as soon as Gally would let him. “Just know that first, I approve, and two – you’re using your own t-shirt this time.”

 

“ _They’re both mine_!”

 

“Know what else is mine?” Minho reached out for a hip, rolling his boyfriend back into him where he belonged.

 

“So goddamn possessive.”

 

“…Is ‘God damn’ one swear, or is it two?”

 

Gally just laughed into the next kiss.

 

“Just shut the fucking hell up and c’mere.”


End file.
